But alternative medicine is raising more ominous rumbles
these days among the 65,000 members of the Schaumburg-based
American Veterinary Medical Association.

A feud is brewing between conventional animal doctors and
those who think their furry patients benefit by alternative
practices, from chiropractic adjustments to aromatherapy.

As unconventional therapies become more popular, the
association's leadership is promoting new guidelines that
would label such treatments "unproven practices," which could
push some states to restrict licensed veterinarians' options.

The debate parallels a longstanding split in human health
care. While two-legged patients and, increasingly, their
insurers embrace alternative therapies, the human medical
establishment, especially the American Medical Association,
continues to limit its support to treatments it believes can
be scientifically proven.

For the vets, the stakes and the hackles are rising.

Los Angeles-area veterinarian Dr. David Ramey, a member of
the AVMA task force that wrote the guidelines, said it is
crucial to toughen the association's stance toward alternative
therapies.

"There's no good evidence that sticking a needle in one
spot is any better than another spot," he said. "We're in a
profession that is based on science, and science has rules
that you play by."

But proponents of alternative veterinary medicine believe
the science-based practitioners are sticking their heads in
the sand. McCauley, for one, is alarmed.

"For the veterinary field to be backtracking as the human
field is getting bigger is ludicrous," said McCauley, a
Grayslake veterinarian who specializes in rehabilitation
therapy for dogs, using acupuncture, chiropractic and what she
says is a first-of-its-kind underwater treadmill.

Veterinarians such as McCauley fear new guidelines would
make such animal care less respected and harder to obtain,
because states look to the AVMA in setting standards for
licensing veterinarians.

"To say we're polarized is putting it mildly," AVMA staff
member Craig Smith said. "There are strongly held opinions on
both sides. Everyone falls on one side or another."

Smith said it is difficult to estimate how many
veterinarians practice alternative therapy. They belong to
such organizations as the 550-member American Academy of
Veterinary Acupuncture, the 800-member American Holistic
Veterinary Medical Association and the American Veterinary
Chiropractic Association, among others.

Their practices cover a wide spectrum, from the relatively
intuitive -- using garlic to ward off fleas -- to the exotic,
such as the use of Bach flower remedies, named after an early
20th Century doctor who believed human emotional excesses
could be treated with herbs. Bach flower remedies, often
ground up and diluted in a brandy solution, are sometimes
given to show dogs and horses to soothe them, one vet said.
Similarly, aromatherapy uses the scent of oils to manipulate
the emotional state of animals.

Some remedies, such as acupuncture, have been around (in
human treatment) for thousands of years, while others, such as
aromatherapy, are new to humans and newer to pets.

Often the treatments are little different from their human
counterparts; while some people wear wrist bands with magnets
in hopes of stimulating blood flow, a horse with joint pain or
a muscle tear might have his leg wrapped in a piece of cloth
with magnets sewn into it.

For Jake, the 9-year-old German shepherd who has arthritis,
bi-monthly treatment means 11 acupuncture needles
strategically placed on his back and neck, drawing hardly a
flinch. McCauley hooks each needle to a low-voltage electrical
current, a therapy that she says regenerates nerves. The
treatment lasts about 20 minutes.

Guidelines adopted in 1996 by the AVMA approved of some
practices, for example calling acupuncture "an integral part
of veterinary medicine" and saying chiropractic "can be
beneficial." But this language is gone from the new proposals,
which state that unless scientific data on the safety and
efficacy of alternative and complementary therapies are
obtained, "veterinarians should be careful in their advocacy
of unproven practices."

>"My feeling is there is a group of veterinarians who feel
that all types of alternative and complementary medicine are
just plain wrong," said Dr. Priscilla Taylor-Limehouse, a Los
Angeles-area veterinarian who is president of the American
Academy of Veterinary Acupuncture. "They'd like to use this as
a forum to make their feelings known and change policy as much
as possible."

Taylor-Limehouse also objects to the way the guidelines
lump all alternative therapies together.

"We don't feel that acupuncture is on a par with such
modalities as aromatherapy," she said.

Taylor-Limehouse contends that the AVMA proposals are in
complete contradiction with a 1997 statement on human
treatment from the National Institutes of Health that said
"sufficient evidence of acupuncture's value exists to expand
its use into conventional medicine."

Nonetheless, the American Medical Association's policy on
alternative medicine seems to be in line with the AVMA
proposals, stating, "There is little evidence to confirm the
safety or efficacy of most alternative therapies."

"No one on the committee wants to keep effective therapy
from sick animals," said Ramey, the Los Angeles veterinarian
who helped draft the guidelines. "But the flip side is that
through history, all sorts of therapies have come and gone and
been popular and then discarded. We don't want to play that
game."

Smith said the AVMA gets about 25 letters a day from
veterinarians and pet owners unhappy with the proposed
guidelines and is accepting comments until Thursday. He said
the task force will consider objections and other comments
before sending a final version to the AVMA's executive board
and house of delegates for approval as early as July.

Third-generation Barrington Hills veterinarian Dr. John
Hanover -- whose patients include the horses at Medieval Times
in Schaumburg, which he treats with chiropractic and magnetic
therapy -- said the goal should be what is best for the
animals.

"They're saying we're not supposed to be doing this, even
though it's working," Hanover said. "People who practice this
way have nothing but the animals' interest at heart. We want
them to get as well as we can."